Mad About Kent: The Keep it in Kent Community Blog

An unusual cookery workshop has been taking place in Northfleet – and you could join in this month.‘How to Prep a Crab’ has attracted budding chefs to join Rosemary Williams to learn how to prepare a crab using her family’s method, created by her grandfather and handed down through the family. She has named it The Holbrook Way – in honour of her family name and has been holding the monthly workshops at Eastgate in Northfleet.

Business Essentials – The fundamental bits to setting up a local business

Setting up your own business is never as easy as 1, 2, 3. There are countless things you have to consider, and the process itself can involve a lot of work – making the whole thing feel like a seemingly impossible task.

We’re here to convince you otherwise by breaking down the process of setting up your very own local business.First things first – research. As much as you’re dying to get trademarking and creating a website, it’s important to do as much research as you can bear. Think about it- imagine spending hours designing a logo, creating a website, and getting all of the initial set-up done, only to find that no one in your area has any need for your business? It doesn’t bear thinking about, but it may be the case if you fail to do thorough research.

If you're anything like me, you'll have a small (ok, not so small...) collection of prints, artwork, precious items and souvenirs that you've been meaning to get framed for goodness knows how long! Thinking about it, the reason my particular collection of unframed treasures keeps growing, is probably because it seems quite a daunting prospect... Will I make the right choices? Will it cost twice as much as the picture or souvenir itself?

Happily, my recent experience with Bev Saunders at Edge Bespoke Picture Framing (ably assisted by Bonkers the cat), has shown me just how enjoyable and rewarding the process can be!

As you know, Keep it in Kent is all about encouraging local residents and business to change their spending habits - and part of that includes taking the opportunity to support their local farmers markets and farm shops when they can. As soon as you visit a farmers market, you are aware of the benefits: the produce is so fresh and wholesome, and often at surprisingly reasonable prices. It's got to be a win-win!

Over the past 18 months since we started the Keep it in Kent campaign, we've met some remarkable people who have dedicated themselves to running their local farmers markets. Very often it's not for any significant personal financial gain, but for the pure love of it, and the belief in the importance of supporting local producers.

We're delighted that Sandra Woodfall has contributed to our community blog, by giving us an insight into how she started "My Farmers Market Ltd" which currently runs markets in Gravesend, Dartford, West Malling, Chislehurst and Hall Place, Bexley:

Phishing scams are at all-time high

Did you know, 1 in 5 employees open a phishing email without realising?

But what are phishing scams?

Phishing is a SCAM used by fraudsters to access valuable personal details, such as usernames and passwords. Sent to thousands of people, these emails pretend to be trusted organisations or people you know well i.e. Employees, Banks, and Online Shops. They usually try to trick you into going to a particular site to enter various personal details. The link usually looks exactly like the real thing but is actually FAKE designed to trick you.